


Both Vast and Monotonous

by clightlee



Category: Star Stable
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2019-09-16 14:20:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16955631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clightlee/pseuds/clightlee
Summary: One year before the battle for New Jorvik, some backstory happens!! Bounty hunter/librarian Carina Lightlee is tasked with bringing the Widow Drake, notorious bandit queen and kidnapper, to justice. Nic Stoneground, nomadic gentleman scientist, is on the run from something- most likely the Widow Drake. When their paths cross, only time will tell whether they'll exploit one another for their own gains or fall prey to something even dicier than abduction plots.





	1. Once Upon A Time In Disguise

**Author's Note:**

> Wellllp, here goes! I always feel like I should be writing other folks' characters but sometimes you gotta treat yo'self. Plz comment with the level of spice & smut you would like to see come out of this!  
> -MICK ROCKLAND  
> \- Bonus points if you catch the Tom Swifty

The late frost was still melting in the shadows of the foothills when Carina set foot on the train to New Stockholm.

 

She shivered involuntarily into her traveling coat- stiff with starch, the coat of someone trying hard- and edged down the narrow aisle, looking for a promising seat. Carina always got melancholy in the leadup to a hit, and she needed something- or someone- more interesting than the scenery to keep her mind from wandering off into moral no-man’s-land. Otherwise she’d be calling off her plot to bring in the Widow Drake- WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE- and return to her bookshelves, ashamed of her cowardice.

 

 _Not you._ Carina slipped past a bevy of finely-dressed young ladies with matching pink bonnets. Though she would have fit right in with them, given her disguise, gossip about crinolines and gentlemen was best left to women not carrying two revolvers in their valises (and a pocket derringer, and a knife in each boot). _Certainly not you._ Carina averted her eyes from the wholesome young family, bouncing daughter hooting on a harmonica. She’d feel dastardly entering into conversation of picnics and trout streams with them given her murderous intentions for this journey.

 

Her appearance belied her murderous intentions, for Carina planned on apprehending this Widow Drake- DEAD OR ALIVE- at the annual New Scandinavia Women’s League convention. The convention was a female-only affair, and Drake would be without her (hulking, male) bodyguards for a few valuable hours. Carina would be presenting a deathly boring lecture on the propagation of the Jorvik Warmblood breed here in America, and was dressed accordingly in her Sunday best. The flounces in her skirt hid her weapons, and riding breeches, and sensible boots. 

 

_Wait… you._

 

A compartment towards the rear of the railcar held only one person: a lump of a fur trapper, covered head to toe in pelts of varying color, size, texture, and freshness. He was sound asleep and proclaiming as such with each gentle buzz of his snore. As far as fur trappers went, he was suspiciously clean- only a slight waft of varmint- so Carina observed him for a moment longer through narrowed eyes before the jolt of the train beneath her caused her to decide. What harm could a hygienic backwoodsman possibly do in the six hours it took to reach New Stockholm by rail? She took a seat and pulled a notebook from her valise.

 

The trapper yawned, stretched, and shook himself, sending up a gamy (though not entirely unpleasant) aroma and a cloud of loose hair. Carina busied her eyes with her notes. She hoped her penetrating gaze hadn’t awoken her companion.

 

“Mornin’ ma’am,” grunted the trapper. “Er, Miss? Miz?”

 

Carina smiled tightly, assuming the role of librarian-out-for-an-edifying-excursion. Which she partway was. “Miss. Good morning to you sir.”

 

“Miss who?”

 

Carina arranged her face to say _impertinent!_ although she welcomed the inevitable conversation that would surely follow. “Miss Lightlee. Librarian in New Jorvik. How do you do Mr…?”

 

“Rockland. Mick Rockland.” He said it too quickly. The trapper reached across the compartment and seized her hand for an ungainly shake. Carina noticed instantly that his hands were far, far too fine for a mountain man’s. They were hard as saddle leather but virtually unscarred, uncalloused, intact. His cuticles were tidy. _He’s no mountain man._

_Very well._ “Tell me of your travels, Mr. Rockland,” Carina said lightly, and leaned back for what she knew was a whole barrel of prevarication. Let someone else conceal something for a while.

 

…

 

Four hours passed in stilted conversation, interspersed with Carina staring at her lecture notes and Mick Rockland staring out the window.

 

“Monotonous,” he commented at one point.

 

It was during one such lull that the train suddenly screeched to a halt. Carina and the trapper were on their feet instantaneously, faces pressed against the window. Figures on horseback were milling around the first few cars of the train. Their raison d’etre was made clear when one fired a gun into the air repeatedly.

 

It was then Carina noticed the bandana the rider was wearing. It was a flashy shade of blue and she knew that if she were closer she’d spy a green insignia. This could only be one of the bands of mercenaries in the employ of the Widow Drake, noted kingpin, government-sanctioned gangster, and bankroller of bandits. They’d been kidnapping enemies of the Drakes off of trains of late, taking them… who knew where. That’s why the Jorvik Rangers had put a bounty on her head. That’s why Carina was off to kidnap the kidnapper, and claim said bounty.

 

Rockland craned his neck to see around the cars. “Train robbers. Or bandits. Shit. Fuck,” he finally muttered, with the diction of a baron. “If you’ll pardon my…” he stood to collect a pack from above his seat.

 

Carina was staring up at him, suddenly aware of how tall and broad-shouldered this previously crumpled trapper was. The skins hung from him loosely, a much less compelling disguise at this height. Between the stature, the upper-crust accent, those cuticles, and his lack of stench, Carina knew her intuition to be correct: _not a trapper._

“Are these bandits- shit, fuck- after you specifically?” Carina asked calmly.

 

Rockland was already strapping the pack to his back and testing the temper of the window with an elbow, ready to take flight. “I do believe so, ma’am. Miss. Now if you’ll excuse me-”

 

So Drake wanted Rockland. Carina wanted Drake. Therefore…

 

“You’ll be gunned down directly if you take that route,” she said graciously, indicating the window. “I’ve got a horse in the stock car and a hankering to get the hell off this train. You’re welcome to join me.”

 

Rockland looked at her incredulously. “They’re after you, too?”

 

Carina shrugged. “More or less.” She heard the door to the passenger car in front of theirs burst open. Outraged shouts clamoured through the walls. She turned on her heel, snatched up her valise, and started pushing through the crowds in their own car towards the far door.

 

Rockland, sensibly, fell for her ploy. She heard him hurry after her after a moment’s pause.

 

…

 

The stock car was all snorting horses with stomping hooves. Carina picked her way through the melee, seeking a horse without a brand on its rump. She knew that most trains between New Jorvik and the city carried some greenbroke mustangs for sale- horses nobody would miss too badly after a train robbery. Her eyes lighted on a beamy mare splattered with bold flashes of grey and white. Like snow on the mountains.

 

“This one,” she shouted to Rockland (which was most definitely not his name) over the din, and snagged the mare’s lead. The mustang’s eyes rolled white.

 

The trapper raised an eyebrow. “That’s yours? She looks a little… _wild_ for a lady librarian.”

 

Carina couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. “Any port in a storm,” she hollered, and blew the lock off the stock car’s double doors with a well-placed bullet from her derringer.

 

…

 

Rockland was understandably leery about making the jump from train car to the back of the crowhopping painted mare, though Carina was doing her best to keep the mustang in check with her decidedly unhelpful hackamore. It was only the report of gunshots from the car they’d recently vacated that convinced him, and in a twinkling he was holding Carina’s waist in a death grip as they raised a dustcloud towards the hills. The pop of gunfire behind them, too far to cause any harm, spurred the mare forward despite her double burden, and soon they were picking their way through craggy basalt stacks as the ground began to rise beneath their feet.

 

All three were out of breath and Carina slowed the mare to a walk. “They’ll have seen us on the run and send out a search party presently,” she told the trapper, “and I need convincing not to dump you right here and ride my pretty new horse off into the sunset. So you’d best let on why the most powerful woman in American Scandinavia wants your head on a platter.”

 

“It’s an awfully long story, Miss-”

 

“You can start with your real name,” Carina interrupted.

 

The trapper sighed. She noticed his arms (nice, muscley arms) go slack around her waist. “Nic Stoneground. Itinerant geologist, cartographer, all-around boffin-”

 

“The first surveyor of American Scandinavia,” finished Carina, her gut sinking like a sandbag tossed from a celebrated surveying balloon.

 

“So you’ve heard of me.” She could hear him smiling.

 

Carina rolled her eyes, though he couldn’t see it. “I _do_ read every now and again, Mr. Stoneground. And besides, your book has had some… practical applications of late.” She used its maps and descriptions regularly in planning and executing her hunts, and grudgingly had to admit that it was in her valise right now. She’d always fancied the beautiful prose and crisp illustrations of the author, but never imagined that she’d one day be running from bandits, fairly nestled in his embrace.

 

“I got mixed up with the Kembell/Drake crowd purely by accident,” Stoneground sighed, snapping Carina back to the present. “Got an anonymous letter asking for my help documenting the various resource deposits currently untapped in New Scandinavia. The letter included five crisp hundred-dollar bills.”

 

Carina’s eyes bugged out. “So you went along with them.”

 

Stoneground snorted. “I met them at their rendezvous and quickly realized I was in over my head. They wanted me to keep my findings secret- secret from everyone but them. I was to perform my tests of the soil, pinpoint likely veins of natural riches, and answer only to the Widow Drake and her cronies. It soon became apparent that I didn’t have a choice in the matter- I tried to walk away one night and was dragged back to camp with my wrists tied.”

 

“Oh, my.” She wondered idly if she could get him to say _wrists tied_ again in that beautiful Old Jorvik lilt of his. Just for... curiosity's sake?

 

“Finally escaped a few months back. I tricked them into letting me explore a lava tube out on the plains. Told them it contained a vein of platinum! And they believed me!” He was so proud of himself; there was that smile again. “Thankfully it had a backdoor, and I’ve been on the run ever since. Took up trapping to stay out of the public eye. Must say, I’m a better scientist than mountain man.”

 

“Then why risk taking the train to New Stockholm? Surely you knew they were watching the trains.”

 

“It was a calculated risk. I just calculated wrong. I need to get my findings to someone who’ll know what to do with them to stop Drake from laying waste to the entire state.”

 

It was a worthy goal, and momentarily swayed Carina from her germinating plot to use the man of science as bait.

 

“Now clearly you’re up to something more interesting than library science,” Stoneground continued. “Please: enlighten me.”

 

“I moonlight as a bounty hunter to pay my debts,” Carina said simply.

 

“And your mark?”

 

Carina turned- uncomfortably close as they were- to meet his eye. “Drake herself.”

 

“You must be good.”

 

She turned back and straightened her spine. “Just perseverant. The New Jorvik Rangers put out a warrant for her arrest, but lack jurisdiction in New Stockholm. Widow Drake never leaves New Stockholm. The reward’s a fortune, and I was getting restless.”

 

“Then it sounds like we can help each other,” Stoneground said with what sounded like an open grin.

 

Carina made an unladylike sound, much like _ppffftttt._ “If you can help us by finding a spot to lay low until nightfall, I’ll consider not leaving you out here for the wolves and the mercenaries.”


	2. Any Port in a Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nic and Carina's tenuous alliance almost ends in a brawl, but thankfully some more pressing enemies show up and distract them. TW for fightin' and shootin' and cussin' and stuff

Nic made good on his hasty guarantees that he’d find them shelter. After following a rushing creek up into the treeline, crossing over and back countless times to disguise their tracks, and dismounting Snow (Carina had, naturally, named the paint mare) to tread lightly across a scree of fallen shale, Nic brought them to a shady arroyo with a sweeping view of the lowlands.

 

“It only fills during snowmelt season,” he explained, “and we’ll be able to see any followers approach from miles away.”

 

Carina was already splashing cool creek water on her face while Snow thirstily drank. All three of them were covered in dust, and she knew she’d have to clean up before showing up at the convention. Lecturers didn’t look like guttersnipes, especially if they wanted to avoid attention on account of abduction plots.

 

“We’ll take turns keeping watch until sundown, then leave under cover of darkness,” Carina instructed, choosing not to praise his clever arroyo-finding talents. Best not to stroke this one’s ego; he was already positively ebullient, lounging like a mountain lion against a sunwarmed boulder. 

 

“I’ll take first watch,” Nic offered with a lackadaisical full-body stretch.

 

 _Men. Attractive, bearded men of science. Men of the mountains._ Carina shook her head in disgust and twisted around to unbutton the clasp on her skirt. In one fell swoop she’d shucked its cumbersome folds, revealing her trousers, bunched it into her valise, and lay down with the valise as her pillow.

 

Nic Stoneground didn’t even bat an eye. In fact, he was too intent on the plain below to pay her much mind.

 

Carina smiled to herself as she dropped into the shallow yet satisfying sleep of necessity. Nic Stoneground was beginning to grow on her; any normal man of New Jorvik would be clutching his metaphorical pearls at the sight of the town librarian disrobing in broad daylight. The region (she mentally launched into mental lecture mode) enjoyed some of the social liberalism fostered by a matriarchal religion and frequent infusions of immigrants, but this was, mind you, 1869. Wyoming had only just given women the vote, and the rest of that states comprising New Scandinavia…

 

She was on her feet, brandishing the knife she’d been hiding under her valise/pillow, before she’d registered the sound of steel on leather that had awakened her. Carina found herself staring at Nic Stoneground, who was mirroring her posture of tense readiness with knife in hand. They threatened each other in stunned silence for a second, knives poised to taste blood.

 

Only his was a gore-caked, fur-flecked skinning knife, a far cry from her lethal-sharp dirk. Carina jerked her head sideways, and simultaneously they tossed their weapons aside, eyeing each other warily.

 

“I take it you merely aimed to threaten me with that _object._ One jab from that would have me dead from infection before the sun rises.”

 

Nic bowed his head in assent, though his eyes held hers. “What was it you said? Any port in a storm?”

 

Carina folded her arms. “If you’re going to live on the run, you’ve got to properly arm yourself. And for Aideen’s sake oil that sheath, I swear they heard you draw your knife over in New Dundull.”

 

Nic scowled. “Enough. Instead of a lecture, I’d prefer to hear your plan for me.”

 

Carina kept her face blank. “Plan?”

 

“I’m all the bait you need to lure the Widow Drake out into the open. Surely you didn’t rescue my sorry ass on account of my pleasant countenance and cheerful demeanor?”

 

Carina smirked. “To tell the truth, I was still making up my mind when I was so _rudely_ awakened.”

 

Nic swore and spit. “I’m a damn fool to trust you, then.”

 

“And I’m a sap for not trussing and gagging you an hour ago.”

 

They exchanged a meaningful glance, and stumbled over each other in bolting for the knives. Nic bodyslammed Carina out of the way, but as he was scrabbling in the loose dirt and bunchgrass she came down hard with an elbow between his shoulder blades. Nic groaned and flinched aside just long enough for Carina to seize the nasty skinning knife by its questionable blade. She leapt aside to avoid his blind swipe, but was caught off guard by his second arm catching her in glancing haymaker. He pounced on the dirk; she caught him in a chokehold; he fell back on top of her, knocking the wind from her lungs, and she was struggling underneath him to claw for her dirk when he suddenly froze.

 

“They’re coming,” he breathed.

 

With an impressive swoop, Nic scrambled to his feet, slung the wheezing Carina over his shoulder, and made for a rocky outcropping at the mouth of the arroyo. He dumped her in a spiny declivity and peered over the ledge at the slope below.

 

“How many?” Carina managed between gasps.

 

“Just two. So far.”

 

“Don’t trust them. They always hunt in packs.”

 

Nic wheeled around. “Where’ll the others be?”

 

Carina was struggling to her knees. “Odds are they have no idea we’re here, they’re just sweeping for us. I’d expect the reinforcements to be riding the hilltops, so we’d best find cover, _now_.”

 

Snow, gratefully, was lipping grass by the spring under a grove of Box Elder trees, hidden from all sides. Nic and Carina scuttled towards the trees, conflict forgotten, scooping up Carina’s valise full of skirt and guns and Nic’s rucksack on their way. It was only when they were crouched in the long shadows of the canyon walls that Carina took up the subject.

 

“So you’re not going to hamstring me and make a run for it solo?”

 

“I couldn’t drive that horse if my life depended on it, which it would. Additionally, you seem to have quite the arsenal; I have a muzzleloader that likely last saw service in the French and Indian war. Like it or not, you’re my best and only hope to leave this canyon under my own power.”

 

Carina was loading her revolvers with the mechanical swiftness of habit. “Any port in a storm.” She still didn’t know why she hadn’t already made her escape alone on horseback. Keeping truck with a hunted man wasn’t exactly the low profile that would get her close to the Widow Drake. Maybe it was her conscience; maybe it was her righteous anger at the string of kidnappings; maybe she was just letting her eyes and the warm feeling in her stomach make the decision for her. He _was_ easy on the eyes, if you liked bearded, barrel-chested, wisecracking scholar types. 

…

 

The skirmish itself was shockingly tame. Carina took aim from the grove, but when she heard hoofbeats on the rim above, she held her fire.

 

Nic, from the shadows behind her, made a face that clearly begged her to shoot.

 

Carina ignored him- or tried her best to- and let the pair of riders clatter off to the North. Nic crept over to her and, in a controlled voice, demanded, “Why didn’t you shoot?”

“If I kill unnecessarily, I’m little better than Drake’s gang,” Carina replied.

“What of the other two?”

“They might have our track. The last two certainly didn’t. We never rode on that ridge.”

“And if they do? Would you shoot to kill?”

Carina shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“There’s not much _we_ here,” Nic began. “You’re the one with the gun-”

“Then grab your muzzleloader; I won’t stop you, as long as you keep it pointed away from me.”

 

The riders on the ridge were out of earshot and Nic was just completing his load when something stirred at the mouth of the arroyo. Both silently took aim.

A sage hen exploded from the brush, but neither Nic nor Carina took the shot. Carina caught his eye and nodded approvingly.

A second later, the first rider came into view, slowing at the opening to the draw. “You in here, Stoneground?” the rider shouted in a brassy drawl. “If you is, well, it’s my lucky day!”

Nic tensed on his trigger, but Carina lifted a finger towards the opening. Two breaths passed before the second rider ambled into view. The two exchanged words in low voices; too low for their prey to make out.

The riders turned their mounts into the arroyo, and approached the box elder grove.

Each slowly drew a gun from his belt.

Carina muttered, so low that Nic had to shift imperceptibly nearer to hear: “I can’t take two ready gunmen alone. You take the big one.”

The big one was so close now that Nic could pick out the sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“When?” Nic breathed.

Carina made an exasperated face but kept her gaze trained on the hunters. “When you can’t miss.”

Nic watched a droplet of sweat splash into his target’s collar.

“Where?”

Carina chose that moment to fire, and Nic instinctively followed suit. But through the ringing in his ears, Nic thought he’d heard her say _use your imagination._

…

 

Carina’s bullet hit its mark (which in this case was the talkative n’er-do-well’s right hand. _This is a becoming my signature move,_ she sighed to herself). The split second lag gave the big rider a chance to fire, but his shot buried itself in the trunk of the tree behind which Carina had ducked. Nic’s bullet buried itself in the big man’s shoulder as he recoiled from his own shot, doing enough damage to unseat him. The smaller rider was already tearing out of the arroyo, clutching at his hand, gun flung into the bushes.

“Get his horse,” Carina ordered in a monotone as she rushed out from their grove.

Nic, grateful to see that this model came equipped with bit and saddle, raced towards the snorting, pawing animal as Carina lunged for the big rider’s gun. She reached it long before the debilitated rider, and, grimacing, executed a balletic thud with the pistol’s butt atop his head.

Carina stood there in the open, breathing hard for a second, then ran back into the grove to fetch Snow and the bags. By the time she met up with Nic, galloping away from the arroyo, he’d gotten his own horse well under control. They slowed to a trot to save their mounts’ energy.

“Nicely done, pardner,” Nic grinned.

Carina suppressed an eyeroll and a smile at the same time. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but was it old adrenaline from the fight for her life or new dopamine from glimpsing certain chiselled jawlines? _Too many feelings! Focus._

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” she reminded him, “but our attackers are all hurt, scattered, or oblivious enough to give us a few hours’ lead. I need to be in New Stockholm by noon tomorrow if I stand a chance of capturing Drake, so I aim to run for the river and make camp down in one of the canyons that feed it. With an early start I’ll be able to make my lecture, and the hunters won’t expect us to head towards their stronghold. Are you even listening?”

Nic had pulled a book from his rucksack and was holding it at an angle, squinting at it. “Yessir. Ma’am. Wouldn’t it be more expedient to hole up in one of the caves just East of town?” He turned the book- maps, of course- towards her, but Carina didn’t slow her horse to look. He reached out a hand to grab hold of Snow’s hackamore, but missed and ended up with Carina’s thigh in this hand instead. He withdrew it as if scorched and was coughing out an apology when Carina interrupted.

“Mr. Stoneground. Nic. To be perfectly frank I smell like three different kinds of sweat, I’m spattered in blood, and my clothes are filthy. They won’t let me within sight of the Widow Drake until I’ve had a proper bath and the river happens to be my best option. _You_ are welcome to proceed to the Eastern Caves without me, now that you’ve a horse of your own.” She pressed her heels lightly to Snow’s sides, but Nic held fast to her headstall.

“So you’re letting me go? I’m not part of some elaborate ruse to draw the Widow Drake out of her fortress?”

Carina let out a long sigh. “My plan was ironclad before you happened into my life, Nic. Far be it from me to throw an innocent boffin to the wolves just because it’d make things easy.”

“Easy, is it?” he quirked a smile.

“Are you a glutton for punishment?” she said, exasperated.

“Maybe I could help you.”

“Why?”

“If the Widow Drake’s behind bars, I can stop living on the run. Find some clean clothes, for starters, publish my geological survey… be a free man again. Can’t do that without you.” He gave her a meaningful look.

 _But what did it mean?_ Carina narrowed her eyes at him.

“C’mon, I’ve been told I make a great distraction,” he smirked. “And besides, you’ll need someone to stand guard while you make yourself presentable. Really, it would be the only gentlemanly thing to do.”

“Suit yourself.” Carina spun Snow towards the river and cantered away, overly cognizant of Nic’s eyes following her.

_Any port in a storm._


	3. Night Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carina and Nic are done a frighten, but thankfully this leads to... good things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to YOU if you catch the Bella Sara reference

They reached the river as the evening shadows grew deep. It had been a few hours’ ride, spent in shockingly amicable conversation between the two riders. With the approaching dark hiding his face, Carina found it much easier to communicate with Nic, just a voice speaking in the desert. He, it seemed, felt likewise. Their talk had moved from clipped plans for the morrow to swapping stories of their travels. Carina even found herself laughing, and listening to Nic muffle his ringing laugh from echoing off the rockstacks. _What a sexy laugh._

 

“No fire?” Nic asked for confirmation as they finally dismounted at the water’s edge.

“Too risky.” Carina rummaged in her valise and pulled out jerky and dried fruit for them to snack on. “Sorry it’s so paltry, I only packed for one.”

Nic shrugged. “This time tomorrow, if all goes well, I’ll be a free man. Then I can waltz into any dining establishment of my choosing and order …” he cast around with his hands in the air, making the bay gelding they’d stolen from their attackers pin back his ears. Carina calmed the horse as Nic enumerated “beef Wellington, Sacher torte, pork a la Normande…now, if I could manage a way to always have a magically replenishing icebox with me…”

“Thank you, sir, for making me responsible for your sustenance in perpetuity. The pressure is quite bearable,” Carina laughed with exaggerated sarcasm, moving back to her valise to rustle out her soap.

Nic soberly cleared his throat. “All unintentional, of course. Shall I, um, stand guard?”

 

 _Right. Bathtime._ Carina thanked the gloaming darkness for concealing her blush. She’d always blushed too easily, but now that her interactions with the scientist had evolved from battle royale to passive-aggressive verbal sparring to companionable banter, her face had been one shade shy of tomato too many times this evening. She shook her head slightly to clear it and replied, calmly, “Sure. Take the revolver. That big Russian olive tree over there should be decent cover-”

“Not to argue, my dear, but if we’re ambushed while you’re bathing I’ll be too far to warn you without shouting. Perhaps instead I should-”

Carina was still mentally gesticulating over _my dear_ and didn’t even try to pay attention to Nic’s alternatives. But it was true; her suggestion of the tree would have placed Nic far up the draw that they’d followed down to the river, far enough to have zero chance of accidentally catching a glimpse of her milk-white elbows as she washed her hair. Not that she’d especially mind if he accidentally caught a glimpse of her elbow, or really any of her better features; it was force of habit to create no uncertainties when it came to her damned reputation. As a single, working woman without family in the West, she had to behave scrupulously, in case some self-righteous townsperson called into question her moral character and suggested her removal from her position of public service. As exciting as bounty hunting could be, it definitely didn’t provide the security Carina had come to value in a roof over her head, paper and ink, and a stable for her horse. No, as stupid as the concept of reputation was, it was a concept she had to honor.

 _Only when there’re witnesses,_ whispered a voice inside her head. _Any witnesses tonight will likely be shot on sight._

Carina took a deep breath.

“Sure, that sounds good,” she said evenly.

“Upon my word as a gentleman and a scholar, and as a decent human being, I promise to keep my eyes trained only on the trail,” Nic said, striking a swearing pose with a hand over his heart.

 

Carina, it turned out, had agreed to her guard being rather near at hand. The river had carved a small cove from the banks, with a pebbly beach cutting a shallow half-moon into its rushing side. The beach was bisected by a substantial pile of boulders, tossed up from the waves during an especially turbulent spring thaw. It rose a good ten feet straight up from the shore and proceeded into deep water, providing a perfect screen for bathers and reputations.

 

Nic took up position in the shadows of the North side, and Carina tucked her possessions behind a dry rock on the South. She quickly stripped down to her shift- she’d perspired a good deal during their skirmish back at the arroyo, and thought she might as well scrub her underthings while she was at it- and left only a knife on a rock at the water’s edge, just in case they were attacked. She unbound her hair from its tight chignon and, with an involuntary “eep!” plunged into the river.

 

The water might just as well have been glacial ice from the peaks of the Silvers- which, probably a few weeks before, it had been. She felt the current picking up as she waded further out from the shore, but kept her feet planted on the smooth, mossy stones as well as she could. As she began scrubbing herself with the sweet-smelling pine-resin soap she’d brought with her, Carina felt the dense grime of the day flying away downstream, leaving her clean as the sunrise. It was like one big sigh of relief. She let the tension of fleeing and fighting for her life and governing her tongue and actions around the enigmatic Mr. Stoneground get washed away, and when she rose to the surface to draw breath she felt like a new person. The water felt how the night sky looked- liquid and blackest black and pricked with stars. She took a deep breath and-

“Carina!”

Nic’s whisper reached her just in time. It had been as quiet as quiet could be but she could detect a note of urgency. Once submerged, Carina kicked off from the bank and let the current carry her around the boulders to the Northern face where Nic waited.

She rose to the surface so her nose had just cleared the water. “What?”

Nic, who had been watching the trail, every muscle taut with alertness, startled, but upon seeing that it was only the top of his companion’s head sank back into the shadows. He’d waded in up to his knees to use the crack between two boulders as shelter. Even from a few feet away, Carina couldn’t see him once he’d melted into its shadows.

“Hoofbeats up on the ridge, coming closer,” he murmured. “Your things are hidden, yes?”

“Yeah.” Carina strained her ears and picked out the rhythmic staccato of a trot, no more than a half mile distant. “The horses are tied in the next draw, in case someone does come down here.”

They waited for another minute, barely breathing, as the hoofbeats grew closer. Then a beam of light flashed down the length of the draw. It swept over the shore, feet from where Carina was crouched.

“Shit, they have a lantern,” Nic muttered. “You’d best get in here. Unless you can grow some gills.”

Possible provenances for the lantern flashed through Carina’s mind- it could be Drake’s gang, come to take their revenge, or New Jorvik Rangers with happy trigger fingers and reason to be suspicious. It could be bandits or a marauding war party- _yep, better just go for it._ As the lantern swept right, Carina silently rose from the water and slid into the crack in the rock.

 

The space wasn’t more than a yard deep, and narrowed considerably as it reached back. Most of the space was filled with broad-shouldered leather-clad man, who, compared to the chill of the river, practically radiated heatwaves. Carina struggled to squeeze as far back as she dared without touching Nic even the slightest bit.

 

The hoofbeats started down the draw.

 

“Just one rider,” Nic breathed. His exhalation tickled her ear and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. _Bless the dark._ Her face was on fire again.

 

Carina sent up a prayer to Aideen for the rider to take the South side of the beach. _South side. Please. To not pass by them-_

 

 _Shit._ The knife. It was just a small knife, really, sitting at the edge of the South side of the boulder pile, but its blade would more than likely catch the lantern light and attract attention. Attention they couldn’t afford. _North side. Please, North side._

The lone rider paused, taking stock of the riverbank, before directing their horse- _yes_ \- down the North side of the beach.

 

“Duck,” Nic barely breathed, and tucked a strong arm around Carina’s waist. He pulled them deeper into the crevice, as deep as was possible, shielding the white of her chemise with his body. His head, bowed to keep his eyes from catching the light, was pressed into her streaming hair. Her face was buried in his chest, right next to his heart, and Carina felt like hers was about to leap straight out her throat.

 

The footfalls stopped and the rider dismounted with a soft thud. Then, horse and human bent to drink, not more than two paces away from the crevice.

 

Nic was holding his breath. Carina was sure that the rider- or at least his steed- could hear her pounding chest.

 

After what seemed like an eternity- _what is that thing, a camel?_ \- the rider mounted and the footfalls plodded back up the draw. Only then did Nic lift his head and mutter, “Express rider.”

 

Carina let out the breath she’d been holding, leaning into Nic further in the process. She jumped away on impulse, or maybe it was because she came into contact with something just as hard as the boulders surrounding them, but couldn’t get far due to the solid wall of rock behind her.

 

“My apologies,” Nic muttered. There was smile in his mutter, and he didn’t sound especially apologetic.

“It’s all right, I… don’t mind.” The moonlight caught his profile just so. And just like that, she’d reached a hand up to touch his cheek.

His eyes danced. “Do you…?”

“Yep.”

His mouth tasted like the river, smooth and dark and full of stars. His arm tightened around her waist and she heard his breath catch as she kissed him back. Besides sophomoric flirting with farmer’s sons in the back of one barn dance or another, she’d never _really_ kissed someone. Not like this.

 

Nic pressed her back into the smooth granite wall. One of his hands skimmed up the length of her torso, catching lightly on her freezing breast. His hand opened, gently, and cupped it, and warmth blossomed through her body. _On the one hand, my chemise must be translucent. On the other hand, it’s nighttime. On a third hand altogether, I wish it was daylight._

 

His pulse under her hand was racing, he was biting her lower lip, her calves burned deliciously from standing on tiptoe to meet him-

 

 _No._ Carina splashed back into the river and the warmth humming in her chest evaporated.

 

“No?” he asked, reading her thoughts.

 

“I can’t,” she said, almost a moan.

 

“Very well,” Nic sighed, letting her hands drop. She hadn’t realized he’d taken them. The look on his face made hers soften.

“I can’t get distracted,” she said softly. “My life and yours hang in the balance. If I’m not all there during the conference tomorrow, worrying about you, if you’re my weakness…” she trailed off and shivered. And then she couldn’t stop. She was suddenly cold, bitterly cold, all over, her sodden shift only making matters worse.

“We can’t afford any weaknesses,” she managed through chattering teeth.

 

Nic scooped her into his arms- so incredibly warm and strong- and strode back to the shore. Carina couldn’t help but huddle against him, and didn’t bother to protest. He snagged his pack from behind the boulder where he’d hidden it, yanked a woollen blanket out, deposited her on the ground, and wrapped it around her shoulders in what seemed like one fluid motion. “You’re sure you don’t want a fire?”

“Still too risky. The Express rider was enough excitement for one night.” Nic grinned and cocked an eyebrow at her. “Fine. The Express rider _and_ what followed. But I’m still not letting myself get entangled with someone my prey is stalking.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, what happened to ‘we?’”

“By sunrise tomorrow, there’ll be no more ‘we,’” Carina said flatly. She tried to stride over to the edge of the draw, where a litter of pine needles would make the ground somewhat softer, but felt foolish dragging the hem of the blanket in the dirt en route. It was less of a stride and more of a stumble.

She heard Nic sigh dramatically from behind her, then run off to the beach to retrieve her things. A moment later he appeared at her side, valise and clothes in a bundle. He seemed to have made up his mind.

“To preface this: I’m not just saying it to get under your skirt,” he began. “I volunteer my services in your plot tomorrow, and whether or not you accept them, I’ll be showing my face in New Stockholm just long enough to get Drake’s men on my trail, away from the hotel and your heist.”

Carina had burrowed further into the blanket to cover her wet hair, but peeped back out, aghast. “You will _not._ The entire _point_ of this exercise was to get you out of their clutches. Having your peril to distract me from kidnapping the most powerful woman in New Scandinavia is _precisely_ what I wish to avoid.”

“I have it figured out,” Nic retorted. “I’ll pay off a boarding house at the edge of town to put my name on their register and then ride West as fast as I can. By the time they’ve caught my scent, I’ll be hidden in Stoneforest.”

 _Stoneforest._ It covered untold acres, winding up into the Whitemantle mountain range and was forested not with trees but with huge stone monoliths, thrown by a vast retreating glacier in the days before Jon Jarl. Most New Jorvegians had never ventured into its crags, partly due to superstition (there was no way of knowing what lay in wait in there) and partly due to the practical fact of there being no known map or even trail through its wilderness.

“Do you plan on making it _out_ of Stoneforest alive?”

“I have before. Twice. I have my ways of navigating, and I know for a fact that no one could follow me through. You don’t have to worry; I can take care of myself.”

Carina chuckled, thinking of her long-standing crush on the author of New Scandinavia's only book of maps. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

“Not at present. But I _am_ trying to convince you to allow me to do this with your blessing.”

“And why do you care about my blessing?”

“So that I know you won’t let my circumstances distract you. And so that when we meet again, you’ll not chase me off with a shotgun.” He smiled hopefully at her.

“ _If_ we both survive tomorrow, and _if_ we ever meet again, I’ll entertain the notion,” Carina smiled back “Now I believe you have the first watch tonight, wake me when Orion’s belt dips below the mountains.”


	4. Clunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carina and Nic go their separate ways, but not without a promise. Carina completes her heist, but who knows what the future holds?

Carina dropped into a dreamless sleep, her heart still singing. The dull roar of the river and clean, piney scent of her hair and clothes, combined with the rather delicious wool-and-smoke scent of the blanket, wrapped her in warmth and dreams of an undisclosable nature. Still, when she heard Nic quietly calling for her, she was awake and dressed at once.

Nic was lounging against the boulders at water’s edge, watching the stars carve pathways across the mouth of the draw. Orion, true to her orders, was just visible over the horizon. They’d begin their ride in a few short hours.

“Your turn tot turn in,” she whispered, suddenly very aware that she probably didn't have to whisper and that she didn’t know what to do with her hands. What did she normally do with her hands? Well, she’d normally have some books to hold, but-

“Might as well just stay awake at this rate,” he commented. “If Drake’s men do gun me down on the outskirts of town, fleeing for my life, I’d want to die knowing that I didn’t waste my last day on earth sleeping when I could have been learning something.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” she quirked a smile at his melodrama.

“I’m as good as my word.” He patted the rock next to him, and Carina gingerly sat down.

“You can’t see Carina from here- the constellation, that is,” he commented, gesturing to the expanse of starry sky.

“Never seen it, myself,” Carina, the woman, sighed. “Would have to sail further than I’m ready to go. Have you been? To the Southern hemisphere?”

Nic was nodding. “Once was enough. I feel like every year of my life, the West draws me closer and closer to itself. The more I explore and map and uncover, the more I’m bound to this corner of the globe.”

“Oh? And you’re fine with that?”

It was hard to tell in the dark, but she thought he was trying to meet her eyes. “More and more every day.”

She leaned into his shoulder, to better see the stars. He wrapped an arm around her, and they stayed like that until first light.

 

 

They rode out as day broke over the canyonlands, and rode hard for New Stockholm. By avoiding the roads, the pair also avoided the dust that came with beaten paths. Soon the steeples and chimneys of New Stockholm were in view; soon, they drew up atop a hill overlooking the city. Golden bunchgrass waved around their horses’ knees as they surveyed the Widow Drake’s kingdom.

“I’ll take the tracks into town, sign in at _that_ -” Nic pointed to a run-down rooming house that seemed to be sloping towards the desert- “and be on my way before you’ve even had the chance to pin up your hair,” he promised.

“I resent that assessment.” Carina paused. “But I wish you luck.” Her whole inner being was shouting _Don’t go!_ But she knew that neither of them had a choice. Every moment they wasted, waiting, was a second stolen from the Widow Drake. 

They were silent for a moment. _Another one gone._ “And I you,” Nic replied. He cracked a sudden smile. “And when all of this has blown over, I hope you’ll let me come see New Jorvik. I hear it's a beautiful place.”

"Just so long as you leave your weapons at the door," Carina smiled cuttingly.

Nic's eyes and voice turned serious. "I'll take that as a promise. And-" he doffed his hat and held it over his heart- "when this if over, _if_ we both survive, I want you to know that I intend to ride into New Jorvik with a ring to ask your for your hand."

Carina held up both hands, heart beating furiously in her throat. "Now wait just a minute, _pardner._ What leads you to believe I'd be amicable to such a proposition?"

He grinned devilishly. "You've saved my hide twice, ma'am. Can't say that about too many, let alone pretty women. I reckon I should hold fast to that kind of luck. Like it or not, you're stuck with me."

Carina threw back her head and laughed. "Fine, but maybe start by bringing me flowers first. Don't jump the gun; I'm a danger to us both and in no rush to hitch my star to anyone's wagon."

Nic bowed in his saddle. "Thy will be done. 'Til then." He seized her hand, flipped it over, brushed his lips across her wrist, and wheeled his horse away, throwing up showers of loamy earth as he ran into the jaws of the enemy. 

Carina held her wrist to her burning cheek as she watched him go. Damn. "You're a tough act to follow, Mr. Stoneground," she murmured, and turned Snow towards the road and her own date with destiny.

 

 

That night, riding shotgun on the stagecoach home to New Jorvik, Carina was still mulling over his proposition. Never mind that she'd just aced the highest-stakes manhunt of her career. Never mind that the Widow Drake was currently in handcuffs and blindfold, speeding under armed guard towards the territorial capitol at New Copenhagen where she'd be tried before a court and, Aideen willing, locked up or exiled back to the Old country. 

 

The job had gone seamlessly. By the time Carina, spitpolished and poised, had breezed into the hotel where the New Scandinavian Women's League was holding their annual conference, there was a marked absence of liveried Drake goons. _Thank you, Nic. Godspeed._ It had been almost too easy finding a seat in the back of the lecture hall from whence she could see the towering, platinum-blonde coiffure of the Widow. It had been even easier excusing herself to visit the water-closet (an indoor marvel of plumbing and workmanship) when she saw the Widow Drake rise to do the same. Waiting for the lady tycoon to exit the lavatory, Carina had almost flinched away at the fish-in-a-barrel nature of it all, but as the gilded doorknob turned and as she raised her pearl-handled Derringer to extinguish the Widow's lights, only one thought crossed her minds:

_ Any port in a storm.  _ **Clunk.**

It was to Carina's advantage that the Widow, true to her title, always dressed in black. With a dowdy shawl and hat and a grizzled wig covering her illustrious form, Carina had no trouble recruiting some able-bodied young ladies to help hoist her into a waiting horse-cab bound for a departing stagecoach. _Oh my poor old auntie! Caught in a fit of the vapours! Not even smelling salts will do to revive her! Such a shame when she was so enjoying the lecture. We'll just be on our way back to..._

 

The Widow had already been propped inside the coach by some helpful conductor (and swiftly bound and gagged by her concerned "niece" sight unseen) when shots rang out. Inevitably, someone had noticed the Widow gone, and someone had found one of her soldiers to follow her trail. Thankfully their usual hordes were still chasing Nic towards the Stone Forest. Thankfully too, Carina had predicted this eventuality, put a gun to the driver's temple, and ordered, "Go." The horses were fresh, the driver motivated, and Carina a significantly better shot than the usual shotgun rider. She'd kept Drake's men off their tail until they were running clear across the prairie, with a good enough lead to lose any followers an beat any reinforcements. 

 

When they paused to change horses at a stage stop, Carina had greased the palms of the driver until he agreed to take the old overland route to the capitol. "Stop for no one until you're at the steps of the New Scandinavia Territorial Jail," she instructed briskly. "Then deliver this letter to the first Ranger you meet. They'll take care of the rest." Another stagecoach was rumbling to a stop, bound back the way they'd come; Carina sank into her hat and coat, paid the new coachman her fare, and was homeward bound as the sun kissed the horizon.

 

She prayed that the rest of Nic's journey- and the Widow's, for that matter- would pass without incident. As for herself, she'd done her duty, and when and if the stagecoach arrived in New Copenhagen the authorities would find a letter, wrapped in a DEAD OR ALIVE wanted poster, enumerating the crimes committed by the woman to whom they were pinned. The letter would be signed _C. Lightlee, bounty hunter, c/o New Jorvik Public Library._


End file.
